I have been living in the Philippines for almost two years now. It is a beautiful country. In fact it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. And when you consider the fact that Philippines is made up of more that 7000 islands, you can only imagine the number of beaches that have to be explored.
In the one year that I lived in Manila, we didn't really travel to any beach destinations except Subic bay. It was a lovely first experience, but it didn't really wow us. That could be because we had to travel for over four hours one way using public transport. And on our way back we were caught in a massive traffic jam that made our four travel into a six hour ordeal. After this we didn't really travel around much.
When the new year started, Alex and I decided we must take every opportunity to explore this beautiful country, specially since we live in Cebu now, and there are many beach destinations that can be visited over the weekends.
Our first destination this year was the beautiful Bantayan Island in February. It is a small island and fortunately not a commercial beach destination. So there are no shopping arcades or malls. You can buy small souveniers like fridge magnets or keychains from hawkers at the port or if the hotel has a gift shop you could buy stuff from there. But this destination is not for shopping purposes.
We stayed at Anika Beach Resort, and we had a ocean view room for P 3500/-. This did not include breakfast. But they have a restaurant that is open from 6 am to 10 pm. The menu is very basic and has limited options. If you are vegeterian you may have not a lot to choose from. And there are not may options in town too. The food is tasty and freshly prepared, but the only bummer is the options everywhere are very limited.
We, however didn't notice all this on our trip since David and I were busy in the sea all day. It is just so beautiful that the pictures don't do any justice to the place.
On our second day, we did go around the island. We hired a motorbike for P 500, for half a day. We visited the oldest church in Cebu.
In the one year that I lived in Manila, we didn't really travel to any beach destinations except Subic bay. It was a lovely first experience, but it didn't really wow us. That could be because we had to travel for over four hours one way using public transport. And on our way back we were caught in a massive traffic jam that made our four travel into a six hour ordeal. After this we didn't really travel around much.
When the new year started, Alex and I decided we must take every opportunity to explore this beautiful country, specially since we live in Cebu now, and there are many beach destinations that can be visited over the weekends.
Our first destination this year was the beautiful Bantayan Island in February. It is a small island and fortunately not a commercial beach destination. So there are no shopping arcades or malls. You can buy small souveniers like fridge magnets or keychains from hawkers at the port or if the hotel has a gift shop you could buy stuff from there. But this destination is not for shopping purposes.
We, however didn't notice all this on our trip since David and I were busy in the sea all day. It is just so beautiful that the pictures don't do any justice to the place.
On our second day, we did go around the island. We hired a motorbike for P 500, for half a day. We visited the oldest church in Cebu.
We also visited another resort that has some caves where one can swim. We lazed at one of the shacks right near the ocean, sipped our drinks, and listened to the ocean waves. We had planned to go island hopping but we got up late and missed our boat. Our two days at the island flew past too quickly. And we have decided to go back soon. This holiday is one of the best we've had so far.
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